Ideas and thoughts to make this better

[windrider86]

OK, I took this shot while on the timberline of The Spanish Peak. The whole idea was phenominal but to capture the beauty of the landscape below it seems has escaped me. I shot this with my Olympus E-500 on landscape mode and also tried other settings which pretty much left them a wash. Timing was bad as it was about 2 in the afternoon. I'm new at editing and kind of at a loss as to how to bring the sky out a bit (it almost looks overexposed)so any tips or ideas as to how I might possibly make this a better photo will help. It's ok to edit this and show what yo can do. Thank you in advance

[Saralonde]

You had a stunning view and I can see why you wanted to capture it. I certainly get the feeling of depth and distance. The washed out look probably comes from the time of day. A polarizing filter may have helped. As for composition, there is a foreground but it lacks some visual interest. Perhaps if you got more of that tree that is down in front in there.

I'll let people interested in PS help you with editing ideas.

[Teewinot]

I agree with Saralonde that time of day probably gave you this subdued light. I also agree that while you have shown depth in your shot, it would be enhanced with some perspective (like a tree or rock) in the foreground...and that would be best placed off to the right or left. You have a nice mix of clouds and blue in your sky and I would hate to lose that by cropping off the top, but I feel like at this point your shot is unfortunately cut in half (sky/land). Perhaps there's another way to amend this. As far as post processing goes, I think it could use some increased contrast and maybe some shifted color balance (warmer might be better).

You gotta love those sweeping valley views from above and I'm sure you had a blast taking this shot. Thanks for sharing!

[Farkled]

A graduated warming filter will help the sky. A skylight filter may enhance the valley colors. I assume you've already played with level, contrast, hues & colrs, etc?

[ELAY]

Great depth in this shot.

You can get a bit more colour and drama in the sky and in the more distant hills by doing a local contrast enhancement in post -- unsharp mask on 50 pix radius or so, .10 amount or so, 0 threshold. Lots of tutorials out there.

The other thing you can try, if you are up to it, is to create a duplicate layer of your photo, and then on one of those layers, do everything you can think of to get more drama there (contrast -- globally and on the individual channels, saturation, hue) and then combine your original and your sky layers using a layer mask. Sounds complex if you haven't done it before, but not so tough to get the hang of. If you do it this way, you can basically get the sky you want without mucking up the land.

EL

[clockdoc]

The next time you are presented with such outstanding views, shoot a panorama of the scene, taking as many shots as needed to record the breadth and width, remembering to overlap each scene about 25 percent. Try also to rotate or pivit around a point under the center of the lens for the best matching, although the Autostitch program is very forgiving. Then, download a free program called Autostitch from www.autostitch.net or use one of your own. Widening the view may have helped to bring more of the contrasty foreground into the scene to provide the depth you are seeking. Even as is, it is a fine shot to remember the day.

[windrider86]

Maybe you can anser this question please. I ahve tried layers. For this particular pic I created a duplicate layer and then did all mya djustments on the copy. But then when i go to merge them, instead of combining the two layers and creating a fantastic piece of work it only shows the changes i did to the copy. Which by the way looks very unnatural.
I thought if I had one layer dark and the other layer lighter it would merge the two. Kinda wrong huh

[PLouie]

I can answer your question. You are trying to adjust the washed out areas on a duplicate layer while keeping the original foreground the way it is and somehow you want to composite those two into one image. Is that correct?

If that is what you are doing you should create a mask. It can be used to cover and reveal parts of a layer with ease by using black and white. White being completely opaque and black being fully transparent. Gray would be semi-transparent. The best part of masking is that it is nondestructive.

So duplicate the original, make the proper adjustments. Then add a layer mask to it by clicking the button with the rectangle with a circle in it at the bottom of the layer palette. You will now notice a white thumbnail next to the duplicate layer. Click on that new thumbnail to make sure it is selected. Then use the paint brush tool and select a pure black because you want to remove parts of the image that is blocking the original layer underneath.

So carefully brush out the area where you want the bottom layer to show. You can adjust the hardness of the brush to get the effect you want which I recommend doing. If you make a mistake just change the color of the brush to white and paint it back. It's like erasing and painting back the image. I hope this is making sense to you.

When you are done I recommend you don't merge the layers. Just leave them be. They will be flattened for viewing if you save it as a jpg when you go to save as.

I hope that gave you a better idea how to do what you tried. If my assumption of what you wanted to try is correct anyway.

[ELAY]

Plouie has it exactly right.

It takes a while (at least it took me awhile) to get your head around layer masks, but once you do, you will wonder how you got along without them.

With respect to merging layers, basically after you merge you will get exactly what you saw on the screen beforehand (if all your layers are turned on) -- there is no magic transformation. You have all kinds of powerful tools with blending modes and opacity adjustments to get great layer combinations, but you have to get it how you want it before you merge (or convert to jpeg or whatever).

EL

[Teewinot]

PLouie (and ELAY), thanks so much for the detailed explanations on layer masks. I've been wanting to learn more about these too.